Walk Lighter

I was at the beach looking down at the sand and thought, what if there were little people down there, traveling across what looks like tiny hills to us, but would be mountains to them. That’s when I understood it differently.

Our eyes stay closed.

We just see pebbles,
little kisses between our toes,
the hiss of sand breaking apart
with every step we don’t even think about.

We don’t hear the cries.
We don’t stop to wonder
if that sound is really lives unraveling.

Whole cities, buried in the grains.
Caravans of travelers
with cracked skin and dry lips,
moving across ridges
that look like mountains in their sky.

Our minutes become their decades.
One stride is an entire continent split.
One footprint is a wall raised higher
than any hand could climb.

Their sun is hotter.
Their trees stretch taller.
Their dangers cut sharper.

Still, they move,
step after step,
mile after mile,
through deserts with no ending,
under shadows cast by giants
who never bother to look down.

We groan about grains in our shoes
while they bleed to cross a single hill.

Every heel we press
becomes another trial,
another road made longer.

We build mountains without thinking.
We send storms with nothing but breath.

Perspective is a blade.
It cuts through comfort.
It exposes the violence
hidden in blindness.

Walk lighter.

Leave something more than ruin.
Leave a curve in the sand
that feels like mercy.

Pause long enough
to journey beside them.

The wind already carries enough cruelty.
It buries villages.
It buries footprints.
It buries us all.

We’re not invincible,
and we’re not separate.

We’re travelers under the same sky,
each of us carrying more than we show,
each of us climbing hills
we never asked for.

So let us walk with gentleness,
noticing when another soul stumbles,
reaching out when another cannot rise,
carving paths wide enough
for more than one set of feet.

Every step can wound,
but every step can also heal.

We are all learning,
all aching,
all searching for a way through.

If we choose to walk lighter,
if we choose to walk together,
the hills will not feel so endless,
the winds not so cruel.

The journey was never meant
to be survived alone,
but shared,
step by step,
hand in hand,
heart beside heart.